Inauguration ceremony of the 1975 World Conference of the International Women’s Year, Mexico City Spurred by 39-year-old Gwill York, a former president of the Junior League of Cleveland who in 1971 had replaced Pamela Firman Humphrey as the sole woman on the foundation board, the Cleveland Foundation began to champion local women’s initiatives. The first empowerment grant was awarded in 1972 to the Women’s Law Fund, a team of female attorneys…
…ternative energy. Ronn persuaded British Petroleum (formerly Ohio’s Standard Oil Company) to allow him to use designated funds at the foundation to hire a senior fellow for economic and environmental advancement. With the recruitment of energy industry veteran Richard Stuebi to the position of BP fellow in early 2006, Ronn’s aspiration to help Greater Cleveland become a North American hub of wind energy research, manufacturing and generation…
…-commissioned recreation survey, completed in 1919, recommended improvements in the variety of wholesome leisure-time activities available to Clevelanders. Goff had already hired a survey director, Allen T. Burns, whom he recruited from Pittsburgh, where in 1907 the Russell Sage Foundation, a newly formed national philanthropy dedicated to supporting social science research, had commissioned an influential study of living and working conditions…
…undation’s board, explained that GCAF would dedicate itself to exploring “possible solutions to broad problems that are too extensive and too costly to be attacked by existing organizations, which must concentrate on solving today’s urgent problems today.” Although legally a nonprofit Ohio corporation with its own staff and 11-member board, GCAF was technically a new trust fund of the Cleveland Foundation. “All of its funds will go for studying…
…eft an estate of more than $4 million, the equivalent of about $62 million today. The Cleveland Foundation’s receipt of the bulk of the estate catapulted the foundation into the ranks of the country’s five largest community trusts. More important, it cushioned the foundation from the impact of the Depression, which put several modestly endowed counterparts in other cities out of business. The Coulby bequest divided his gift equally between two…
In 2013, Jerry Sue Thornton retired as president of Cuyahoga Community College after 21 years at its helm. During her tenure, Tri-C added two corporate colleges, a campus in Westlake and a center in Brunswick, and developed a partnership with Case Western Reserve University that made it easier for Tri-C students to transfer. Before arriving in Cleveland in 1992, Thornton served as president of Lakewood Community College, now known as Century…
…ols commissioned by the Cleveland Foundation. Ayres’s critical report resulted in a number of changes within the school system. At the outbreak of U.S. involvement in World War I, Lt. Col. Ayres volunteered to lend the Russell Sage Foundation’s statistical expertise to the Council of National Defense. After the war he moved to Cleveland, where he served for 26 years as vice president and chief economist of the Cleveland Trust bank….
…isbursement of endowment income. Goff insisted that a community trust’s income must be distributed by an independent group of citizens, of which a substantial number were to be named by the holders of positions of honor and trust in the community. Breaking with the practice of setting up foundations as private corporations with self-perpetuating boards, he proposed that only two of the five members of the Cleveland Foundation’s grantmaking body…
…t of the common people. Goff had started his legal career as a solo practitioner and become the “super-troubleshooter” at one of Cleveland’s leading corporate law firms. Because of his specialized skills, Goff was appointed trustee of a bankrupt private streetcar company with which the City of Cleveland had battled for control of these critical transportation lines for seven years. In short order, Goff and Johnson negotiated a Solomonic…
…ke care of its own.” On the last day of the drive, the fate of the campaign remained uncertain. That evening, 8,000 campaign solicitors gathered downtown in Public Hall to learn the final tally. The audience groaned over the news that an 11th-hour contribution of $150,000 from the estate of Samuel Mather, who had died a few months before, had not pushed the campaign over the top. Then Carl W. Brand took the podium. A Cleveland Foundation…